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Speaker 4: Y'all, it's part two of the encore of Chiropterology. You
Speaker 4: didn't even have to wait a week. We put them
Speaker 4: up on the same day. Happy spootover. Speaking of Spooptober,
Speaker 4: we have I have two new episodes coming out next
Speaker 4: week and the week after. But if you need some
Speaker 4: spook Toober content today right now, huh, click the link
Speaker 4: in the show notes because there's episodes on spiderwebs and
Speaker 4: death and dying, condors and vultures, creepy crawleys, skeletons, pumpkins,
Speaker 4: body farms, leaves, beautiful seasonal leaves. Did I mention evil spirits? Anyway?
Speaker 4: It's alleyword dot com slash ologies, slash Spootober link in
Speaker 4: the show notes. Tons of episodes plus two more new
Speaker 4: ones next week and the next week after. Okay, let's
Speaker 4: get into it. Oh, hey, it's still your friend's baby
Speaker 4: who looks like a turtle. Alley Ward back with a
Speaker 4: part two episode of Ologies. Hey, did you listen to
Speaker 4: part one of Chiropterology about bats?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: Then, what are you doing here? Would you walk into
Speaker 4: a movie eighty five minutes in with only half a
Speaker 4: bucket of popcorn?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: So go listen to part one. You're gonna hear all
Speaker 4: about cave tales and bat flimflam debunkery and what is
Speaker 4: it bad, and how are they similar to primates? And
Speaker 4: what makes them able to sleep upside down? And why
Speaker 4: should we protect them? And can you build a huge
Speaker 4: habitat that they'll come and live in? And who makes
Speaker 4: good bathouses? And how can you train one in some
Speaker 4: real tight spots that chiropterologists can get in, but real quick.
Speaker 4: Thank you to all the folks at patreon dot com
Speaker 4: slash ologies make it possible and who submit wonderful fun
Speaker 4: questions every week, and also to anyone who rates and
Speaker 4: subscribes and keeps Ologies up in the charts among the
Speaker 4: science giants. Thank you so much for that, and for
Speaker 4: telling friends about the show, and of course for leaving
Speaker 4: a review for me to creepily read and choose one
Speaker 4: each week to thank such as For example, Nicole thirty
Speaker 4: four ninety six said, I've been listening to Ologies at
Speaker 4: work and it never gets old. I wish I had
Speaker 4: more time in the day to listen to every episode.
Speaker 4: I love the uniqueness of each episode. It will keep
Speaker 4: you extremely interested in wanting to learn more. PS Merlin
Speaker 4: is my new celebrity crush thanks to the Bats episode. Well,
Speaker 4: thank you, Nicole on behalf of myself and America's favorite
Speaker 4: bad expert. So this week Part two. Now, after a
Speaker 4: quick potty break for both of us, we concluded Part
Speaker 4: one of this massive three hour bat extravaganza. Took a
Speaker 4: little break. Merlin just went into his office and grabbed
Speaker 4: an iPad containing an archive of bat calls he'd recorded
Speaker 4: using an ultrasonic microphone, and he lent a play by
Speaker 4: play like Vince Scully of the bat world. And then
Speaker 4: we dove back into your patroon questions. So hang out,
Speaker 4: open your ears to hear bat conversations about echolocation and
Speaker 4: how to put up a bath house and more info
Speaker 4: on white nose syndrome and bat coitus and habitats and
Speaker 4: his favorite species and what he does in his leisure time.
Speaker 4: So settle in for the wildlife wizardry of human treasure
Speaker 4: and America's favorite chiropterologist, Doctor Merlin Tuttle. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: not every day you get down with the Marlin title.
Speaker 6: Well, this is just a very slowed down recording and
Speaker 6: allay there, that's a call of a free tail bad
Speaker 6: Now that one he's just coming up on some obstacles. No,
Speaker 6: he's actually chasing an insect that's his feeding bug. He's
Speaker 6: locked in. Hear that that's that's where he caught the insect.
Speaker 6: Now he's going back to what he was doing.
Speaker 4: Okay. So that ultrasonic recorder is called the Echometer Touch
Speaker 4: and it's made by Wildlife Acoustics. They're not sponsors. They
Speaker 4: just make cool gadgets for scientists and friends to animals.
Speaker 4: And this thing can plug into an iPhone or an iPad.
Speaker 4: They're between like two hundred and three hundred fifty bucks,
Speaker 4: depending on how pro of a model you get. And hey,
Speaker 4: holidays are coming up. How about everyone gives each other
Speaker 4: bad houses and maybe chips in for tiny ultrasonic microphones
Speaker 4: and some of Merilin Tittle's books just wing in the
Speaker 4: new year. Also, what if you just want to see
Speaker 4: some bats now? First time question asker and part time
Speaker 4: at chiropterologist in Alaska, Dave Hayna asked about bat research
Speaker 4: instruments and I hope that he gets one of these things.
Speaker 4: Maybe he already has one. Also, patrons including Iris McPherson,
Speaker 4: Lisa Butterscotch, Jamie Kishimoto all asked about the best way
Speaker 4: to spot one, and Nicole Bratt asked where can I
Speaker 4: go to give bats? A tender little hug, provided they
Speaker 4: want it. If you want to go bat spotting, if
Speaker 4: you want to see a bat, what's the best pace?
Speaker 6: If I want to see a bat, Yeah, I'm probably
Speaker 6: going to do one of several things. First of all,
Speaker 6: I'm going to learn a lesson learn right here in
Speaker 6: front of my house. One night. I wanted to test
Speaker 6: this out when I first bought obtained it, and I
Speaker 6: went downtown and went all over places where I thought
Speaker 6: there'd be bats feeding, and I couldn't pick up hardly
Speaker 6: at bat They left town and went out to the
Speaker 6: agricultural areas defeat.
Speaker 4: Oh wow.
Speaker 6: When I came home, Paul wanted me to try and
Speaker 6: see if they're any in the yard, and I said, no, no,
Speaker 6: there wouldn't been out here. And it turns out that
Speaker 6: in our neighborhood, as in most neighborhoods, most of the
Speaker 6: street lights are yellow now and don't attract insects, but
Speaker 6: the one in front of our place is white. And
Speaker 6: I got such good recordings right standing in front of
Speaker 6: our house that the manufacturer asked to use them for
Speaker 6: promoting the product.
Speaker 4: Merlin says that these are social calls like I love Hey,
Speaker 4: so they do chit chat a lot.
Speaker 6: These are just telling them what's right in front of him,
Speaker 6: but much more detail.
Speaker 7: And that's a type of sonar.
Speaker 6: Yeah, with a bad detector, you'd be amazed how many
Speaker 6: times I can go out and even with a spotlight,
Speaker 6: spot a bat, but I can hear at least one
Speaker 6: or two right close, and I'm like, where hell are they?
Speaker 6: First place I'd go looking for a bat if I
Speaker 6: didn't have a bad detector, would be a white street
Speaker 6: light or any outdoor powerful white light, because they attract
Speaker 6: insects the bats like to eat, is opposed to yellow
Speaker 6: lights that just expose into moralpredation and don't attract insects.
Speaker 4: So go crash an insect party, but do not invite
Speaker 4: any owlse.
Speaker 6: The other thing i'd do if there was a river
Speaker 6: or a lake anywhere and there were boat docks and
Speaker 6: there were landing lights, white lights on the docks, I
Speaker 6: would look around those, because it's a lot easier to
Speaker 6: spot bets out over clear open water, lying low over
Speaker 6: the water than it is up high around street lights.
Speaker 6: If you can find a white street light still, and
Speaker 6: that's hard these days. Sometimes you need to shield your
Speaker 6: eyes from the absolute center of the lights doesn't blind you.
Speaker 6: But then look around and you'll see bats. I used
Speaker 6: to take people up to the state Capitol in the
Speaker 6: springtime and we'd sit there with a bat detector and listen.
Speaker 6: There wouldn't be anything for a while, and then we'd
Speaker 6: hear several bats coming into the zone and we'd look
Speaker 6: up and you'd actually see the wings dropping from the
Speaker 6: maths that they're eating.
Speaker 4: Oh man, now, the wings just drop like snickers wrappers, right,
Speaker 4: Like they don't want those, They just want what's inside, right.
Speaker 4: I didn't realize that about mobs until I was helping
Speaker 4: renovate a kitchen up in Montana and found out that
Speaker 4: animals don't eat the wings. They just like to eat
Speaker 4: the right squishy part, right, Yeah, it's like candy wrappers.
Speaker 4: So in this case, it was a mice infestation on
Speaker 4: our family's little teeny tiny prairie house, and the mice
Speaker 4: just hmm huh, they yum yum it up with the moss.
Speaker 4: But yes, they leave the wings around like swaps. Nobody
Speaker 4: wants them.
Speaker 6: So there are other ways to see bats too, you know,
Speaker 6: watch a cave entrance where they come out at night.
Speaker 6: I have often, you know, even been in a foreign
Speaker 6: country and just look up and see a woodpecker hole
Speaker 6: in a tree and wait and watch and see a
Speaker 6: bat come out.
Speaker 4: Who's there.
Speaker 6: If you're in the tropics, then most places you go,
Speaker 6: like anywhere in the tropics, you'll have various kinds of
Speaker 6: bananas growing banana plants. Bananas are bat pollinate. We didn't
Speaker 6: even get into this whole part of how important bats
Speaker 6: are pollinating economically important and yeahologically important plants.
Speaker 4: Yes, patrons such as Sophie Cosino and Laura Kinney who asked,
Speaker 4: aside from bats chowing down on insects, some bats are
Speaker 4: important pollinators, right, Gwen Boat simply demanded, what can you
Speaker 4: tell me about bats as pollinators? I want to know everything,
Speaker 4: Gwen Boat. Here we go.
Speaker 6: So if you're staying in a resort hotel in the tropics,
Speaker 6: and well, in fact, I've done this down along the
Speaker 6: Gulf of California coast in Mexico, some of a lot
Speaker 6: of the resorts will have cardone and organ pipe and
Speaker 6: sahuaro cactus growing right up outside your door or in
Speaker 6: the parking lot, and there'll be lights around and in
Speaker 6: the right season, bats come and pollinate. They're mostly bat
Speaker 6: pollinated in bat sea dispersed. And I've sat in the
Speaker 6: back of a hotel room in Mexico and watched bats
Speaker 6: four feet away coming and pollinating flowers. And a lot
Speaker 6: of places will have bananas. You know, bananas flower over
Speaker 6: very long periods during the year, and you see a
Speaker 6: banana that has one of the stalks that hang down
Speaker 6: that eventually developed bananas on them.
Speaker 4: Ps Merlin was like, what what is the word for
Speaker 4: a stalk of bananas? Like a stem of them? And
Speaker 4: I was like, got me, dude, but I'll look it up.
Speaker 4: So I did, and let me tell you, there were
Speaker 4: some search returns that are more than new Bargain for
Speaker 4: when you type in banana plus anatomy. Now, at first glance,
Speaker 4: it seemed like the word we were looking for was
Speaker 4: just stem or stock of bananas. But then I saw
Speaker 4: that when it's a bunch of flowers, it's called an inflorescence,
Speaker 4: which sounds like a new Calvin Klein perfume. Also, is
Speaker 4: now a good time to remind you that a banana
Speaker 4: is a berry? Or are we still reeling from that pumpkin
Speaker 4: fact in the qu Crebatology episode? We are? Anyway, bats
Speaker 4: love an inflorescence, or a big stock of flowers to
Speaker 4: motor boat.
Speaker 6: After sun goes down, or starting a little bit before,
Speaker 6: you'll see one of these purple bracts will start opening.
Speaker 6: When it gets open, then the bats come and pollinate them. Now,
Speaker 6: there aren't any New World bats that originally depended on
Speaker 6: bananas for pollination, because bananas didn't come from the New World.
Speaker 6: They came from the Old World tropics. But all commercial
Speaker 6: bananas we today come from bat dependent ancestors.
Speaker 4: This has bananas.
Speaker 6: So anywhere in the world, just about if you go
Speaker 6: out and you see banana plants growing in a yard,
Speaker 6: watch those carefully at dusk or a little bit after dusk,
Speaker 6: and you're very likely to see small nectar feed and
Speaker 6: bats coming in and visiting them.
Speaker 4: So bats are important pollinators for another plant. And al
Speaker 4: gave a clue of what that affects tequila. It's agave.
Speaker 4: The plant's agave. Oh, but if it grows a big
Speaker 4: stock of flowers in the middle, that's an inflorescence.
Speaker 6: By Calvin, I mean even in Austin, I've laughed at
Speaker 6: myself before. I'm curious. I've never gone out to a
Speaker 6: really big, fully flowering agave plant in Austin and watched
Speaker 6: it for a couple hours at night. There might be
Speaker 6: nectar bats here that we don't know about yet.
Speaker 4: Now, are you a night person or you a morning person?
Speaker 6: I don't think I'm naturally a night person, but I've
Speaker 6: certainly had to adapt.
Speaker 4: What happens when you're out doing nocturnal fieldwork? Do you
Speaker 4: just have like a thermis of folgers?
Speaker 7: What do you take with you?
Speaker 6: I have been accused of trying to kill people from
Speaker 6: starvation and dehydration. I used to go on trips in
Speaker 6: the caves. My most arduous cave trip took twenty three
Speaker 6: hours no and in one day we probably climbed six
Speaker 6: or seven hundred feet of vertical ropes and on things
Speaker 6: like that, You've got to carry all these heavy ropes,
Speaker 6: you're climbing gear, your research gear. You don't want to
Speaker 6: carry anything else you don't have to, So I tend
Speaker 6: to go really light on pudding water, And I have
Speaker 6: myself been so desperate at the end of one of
Speaker 6: those long stays underground that one night I actually got
Speaker 6: down and drank water out of a puddle that had
Speaker 6: bat droppings in it.
Speaker 4: Tell the tale. Do you get sick?
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 4: Oh, do I need to remind you to never do this? Okay, good,
Speaker 4: So bring water or emergency water purification tablets or filters. Listen,
Speaker 4: you spend literally fifty years in the field and some
Speaker 4: shit's going to go down, but he survived. Just don't
Speaker 4: you do it? Please? So have you have you learned
Speaker 4: a lesson? Did you never let that happen again?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: I don't think anybody knows me would say I fully
Speaker 6: learned the lesson.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's like some Indiana Jones stuff right there. Oh
Speaker 4: my god.
Speaker 6: One more thing on bat watching. Another way to see bats.
Speaker 6: If you're in a out, if you go to Caribbean
Speaker 6: island to a resort, or you're on Way's cruise ships.
Speaker 6: In the tropic subtropics of Latin America, you can often
Speaker 6: see fishing bats with up to three almost three foot
Speaker 6: wingspans catching minnows under dock lights.
Speaker 7: Catching minnows.
Speaker 6: Uh huh.
Speaker 7: Fisher bats.
Speaker 6: They have big hind feet and laterally compressed toes so
Speaker 6: that they slide through the water of minimum friction. They
Speaker 6: have very sharp claws and they just dip down and
Speaker 6: snag the minno out of the water.
Speaker 4: That sounds like a pterodactyl or something. Okay, side note,
Speaker 4: I look this up and it's impressive as hell to
Speaker 4: use sonar to scoop up a fish with your feet. Well,
Speaker 4: also your hands are wings. But I did think it
Speaker 4: was funny that fisher bats were featured on one nat
Speaker 4: geodocumentary called I Mean they catch fish? So was the
Speaker 4: documentary made for fish? Anyway? Sounds like another fearmonger smear campaign.
Speaker 4: A bunch of bullguano you catchment drift. On the topic
Speaker 4: of guano, some people asked how you felt about the
Speaker 4: term batshit crazy.
Speaker 6: I don't have any particular response to it. I firmly
Speaker 6: believe that if you're too much in love with the
Speaker 6: kind of animal, you can't really effectively conserve it. Okay,
Speaker 6: if you're too much in love with it, you're probably
Speaker 6: going to go out into combat with everybody that doesn't
Speaker 6: do what you think they should do. When I first
Speaker 6: started trying to say baths, virtually everybody I met hated them,
Speaker 6: and they would often tell me about how they kill
Speaker 6: large numbers of them. And I had to learn you
Speaker 6: can't win battles without allies, good point, and you can't
Speaker 6: get allies by fighting with everybody that disagrees with you.
Speaker 6: If the majority disagree.
Speaker 4: With you, welcome to Merlin's School of Conflict Resolution Wizardry.
Speaker 4: Let's role play, shall we?
Speaker 6: And so I would simply ask, well, I'm curious, why
Speaker 6: do you do that? Well, one tried to attack me
Speaker 6: on it. Oh, really, I'm very interested in text, you know,
Speaker 6: and all my life staying baths, I've never been attacked
Speaker 6: or see anybody that was. So I'm really curious. Could
Speaker 6: you tell me about how this attack occurred? And we
Speaker 6: usually end up finding out that it was imagined and
Speaker 6: certainly unproven, or they say, you know, somebody told me,
Speaker 6: and I just asked, we has this person ever been
Speaker 6: wrong about anything?
Speaker 4: You're like, well, they're my drunk one call, and they're
Speaker 4: wrong about everything.
Speaker 6: You just keep asking questions until finally, you know, what
Speaker 6: would you think of bats if you understood that just
Speaker 6: one of that species can catch a thousand mosquitos in
Speaker 6: an hour, or can catch enough potato beetles or cucumber
Speaker 6: beetles in a summer to protect your garden from all
Speaker 6: kinds of havoc. You know, I've had people that thought
Speaker 6: they had a terrible problem with bats in their attic,
Speaker 6: and I'd come and actually tell them how to get
Speaker 6: the bats to leave. But when I'd finished telling them
Speaker 6: about what bats did and what they were like, they'd say, no, no, no,
Speaker 6: we don't want to get rid of them. Now we're
Speaker 6: going to keep them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what do you do if you have bats in
Speaker 4: the attic? Is it okay just to leave him up there?
Speaker 6: I certainly wouldn't advocate allowing bats or any wild animal
Speaker 6: to come into human living quarters inside, But there's absolutely
Speaker 6: nothing to worry about from a bath that wants to
Speaker 6: live behind your window shutter or lives in the attic
Speaker 6: and isn't causing you know, bat droppings. Too much of
Speaker 6: anything in the wrong place is not good. One guy
Speaker 6: put up a bathouse over his front door because he
Speaker 6: wanted to look and see the baths every day. Well
Speaker 6: after they start got to be hundreds of them in
Speaker 6: his house and start dropping a half inch iguano, he
Speaker 6: was calling to know how he could move him.
Speaker 4: Maybe just consider that before you hang it up. H
Speaker 4: So where do you put a bat box? A lot
Speaker 4: of you want to tips, A lot of you, such
Speaker 4: as Josie Gombas, Molly Henning, Trisha Lauren Dean and Blanchard
Speaker 4: May Merrill, Robin Kewan, Eva Jen Henry, Addie Markin, Deborah Diller,
Speaker 4: m Wings, Sarah Greer, Robert Pulcini, Carolyn Armitage, Liz Powell,
Speaker 4: Gretchen Herriford, Fernando Derek Allen, Ellie Abbott, Anna Thompson, Jennifer Alvarez,
Speaker 4: Julie Noble, Highly Stouschnoff, Tristan Kwasinski, Brandy Madeleine Runyon, Charlotte
Speaker 4: fielke Guard, Sarah Crocker, Amy, Sally colleinib and Kevin List,
Speaker 4: who asked, what's to do with bathouses? Why do they
Speaker 4: need to be on a standalone pole above a certain height?
Speaker 4: Or Janet Sebastian Coleman, who asked, how do I befriend
Speaker 4: the bats? How do I get them to come and
Speaker 4: hang out in my yard? Or Jessica Shunk, who asked,
Speaker 4: how can I attract the bats to a bathouse after
Speaker 4: we evicted them from our eves? Or will they forever
Speaker 4: tell tales of our lack of hospitality? She sounds guilty
Speaker 4: as hell. Okay, so I looked it up on Merlin
Speaker 4: Tittle dot org. He has a whole guide about bat boxes,
Speaker 4: write clickable there on his homepage. Read it and figure
Speaker 4: out how big of a bat box would be good
Speaker 4: for this species in your area, and even what color
Speaker 4: to paint it depending on your region. So, darker bath
Speaker 4: houses tend to retain heat and are better for colder climates,
Speaker 4: and ones mounted on a building retain more heat that
Speaker 4: the bats dig, and temperate and warmer climates might be
Speaker 4: better served with a bat box on a pole. Also,
Speaker 4: in general, bats aren't crazy about ones mounted on trees
Speaker 4: because predators can scramble right up the tree where birds
Speaker 4: of prank and hang out in a branch and snack
Speaker 4: on their babies like popcorn shrimp. Also, apparently there's not
Speaker 4: much evidence that adding batguano will attract bats faster, so
Speaker 4: don't deal with that shit. And if you have an
Speaker 4: empty bathouse that just isn't getting a lot of action,
Speaker 4: it might be because it needs seven hours of direct
Speaker 4: daily sun, so it might need to be moved. Anyway,
Speaker 4: go to Merlin Toddle dot org figure it out, and
Speaker 4: then just breathe easy. He writes. If you know you
Speaker 4: have a good bathouse mounted in a good location, be patient.
Speaker 4: The bats will likely run.
Speaker 6: Eventually as long as as you know, the bats are
Speaker 6: on the outside the house, you're on the inside. I
Speaker 6: think that's perfectly fine. And they're the old pest control
Speaker 6: operators are trying to make a lot of money scaring
Speaker 6: people would tell you that they bred like rabbits, that
Speaker 6: they once got their sin established, you'd never get rid
Speaker 6: of them, and all that kind of thing. But not true.
Speaker 4: Okay, Remember, bat breeding goes a little slow, and many
Speaker 4: of them have only one pop at a time, unlike
Speaker 4: a soft, squirmy pile of rabbit babies. So flim flam debunked. Also,
Speaker 4: it didn't strike me until later then I totally forgot
Speaker 4: to ask Marilin about bat Jenny's what's happening in a
Speaker 4: chiropterology crotch? So Cassiana Brook wanted to know. Do bats
Speaker 4: have penises? How do they approcreate?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 4: I looked it up, and they do have sexual intercourse
Speaker 4: with their penises and vaginas they are mammals. Also, bat
Speaker 4: dicks sometimes have eratonized spines on them that may serve
Speaker 4: like a barbecue brush, just to get out other bats sperm. Since,
Speaker 4: as we mentioned briefly last week, bats love and orgy. Now,
Speaker 4: Sam f said, I have recently read articles about fruit
Speaker 4: bats performing falatio and connlingis. Can you tell me more?
Speaker 4: Julie Berry put it more plainly, truth or flim flam
Speaker 4: bats engage in oral sex. Derek Allen, friend to bats,
Speaker 4: chimed in on the Patreon questions and said, I have
Speaker 4: seen this happen when I was a zoo volunteer. Both
Speaker 4: falatio and connal lingus have been observed. So yep, bats
Speaker 4: will get down and they will go down. That is
Speaker 4: a fact. Now. Tay Solis left the Patreon plea, please
Speaker 4: talk about homosexuality and bats. We deserve gay bat talk. Tay,
Speaker 4: I looked it up and sure as heck, yah, bats
Speaker 4: are gay. Bats will bone when everyone's awake. They'll also
Speaker 4: bone each other while one is taking a snooze, which
Speaker 4: is reprehensible in human mammals. Researchers tasked with quantifying bat
Speaker 4: sex say up to thirty five percent of the sleepy
Speaker 4: sex is just man on man bat action. What about
Speaker 4: lady bats? Can we talk about their bat boobs? Sure? Can?
Speaker 4: Their bat boobs are sometimes located in their armpits so
Speaker 4: that their one to two babies can just latch on,
Speaker 4: bite a nip and go zooming through the sky.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: Side note, if you google bat nipples, the first ten
Speaker 4: thousand or so returns are about George Clooney's be leaguered
Speaker 4: be nippled batsuit, which Batman director Joel Schumacher later explained
Speaker 4: that he had told the lead customer of the film,
Speaker 4: let's make it anatomical and then he gave photos of
Speaker 4: those Greek statues. The costumer did the nipples, and he says,
Speaker 4: when I looked at them, I thought that's cool. You
Speaker 4: know what would have been cooler armpit nipples and maybe
Speaker 4: a same sex romantic subplot. Let's spice up these franchises
Speaker 4: people now. This next question, asked by not Clooney, George,
Speaker 4: was echoed by Brian Wharton and austinite let's see George
Speaker 4: Farrar wants to know how did different types of bats
Speaker 4: evolve to have such varying food sources like fruit bats
Speaker 4: having fruit, vampire bats blood. I was thinking it was
Speaker 4: like birds having different beak types, but fruit and blood
Speaker 4: are not the same in any way.
Speaker 6: So hmm, Well, there are a lot of these things
Speaker 6: that we can't know absolutely, we can only speculate based
Speaker 6: on what we see today. But one that's particularly interested me.
Speaker 6: You go to my website photo gallery, you'll see pictures
Speaker 6: of bats pollinaying cacti, and one of them is Some
Speaker 6: of those pictures are pallid bats pollinating Cardone cactus, the
Speaker 6: world's largest cactus. It gets up to fifty sixty feet tall.
Speaker 6: And this is a bat that predominantly was thought for
Speaker 6: most of my career to eat only insects, scorpions, and centipedes.
Speaker 6: Then one night I'm out trying to catch a nectar
Speaker 6: feeding bat to put in my studio, and I watch
Speaker 6: a bat come in and obviously stick its head in
Speaker 6: the flower. It comes out with its head covered and
Speaker 6: pallen gets caught in my net, and it turns out
Speaker 6: to be a pallid bat, not the nectar bat that
Speaker 6: we thought was should have been their pollinating the plant.
Speaker 6: And later it's been well documented that pallid bats are
Speaker 6: major flower pollinators. Probably how this's all started was palid
Speaker 6: bats love to eat things like sphinx moths that come
Speaker 6: to those same flowers. So a palid bat coming too
Speaker 6: a cardone cactus maybe just as likely to grab a
Speaker 6: sphinx moth or as it is to grab a drink.
Speaker 6: Can I give you a night cup.
Speaker 4: So they're kind of like omnivorous a bit.
Speaker 6: Sure, they are bats that are quite omnivorous.
Speaker 4: Now, what about fuzzy blood guzzlers. Are they low key
Speaker 4: monster creeps or are they just like your friends on
Speaker 4: the Keto diet but very hairy with wing hands.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you can imagine that. You know, even vampires a
Speaker 6: little harder to figure out. But you know, they may
Speaker 6: have been attracted. You know, when you had these giant
Speaker 6: animals jabbing each other with tusts and things, there are
Speaker 6: probably some fair open ones and they probably attracted insects,
Speaker 6: and bats may have come to catch those insects and
Speaker 6: then found out that the blood tasted good. And before
Speaker 6: anybody wrinkles up because bats eat blood, let me point
Speaker 6: out that it's only been relatively recent years. It hasn't
Speaker 6: been popular with humans.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's so you know, we're in Texas
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 7: There's a lot of people eating steak today. I'm sure
Speaker 7: that is eating blood.
Speaker 6: So yeah, well, blood sausage, you know, still probably pretty
Speaker 6: popular in some parts of.
Speaker 4: The world, oh for sure. Now, of course, vampire bats
Speaker 4: were on the brains of many of you, including Caleb
Speaker 4: Patten Jody Riek, No Fun, Nicole Radley, Megmahali, Dane Goding,
Speaker 4: Hayden Sloan and first time question asker Kira Die. Do
Speaker 4: you think that the vampire bats are maybe where vampires
Speaker 4: got the lore of being associated with vampires Transylvania types.
Speaker 6: What's interesting is that the whole vampire legend occurred before
Speaker 6: anybody knew of a vampire bat. There are independent vampire
Speaker 6: legends in many parts of the world, from Europe to
Speaker 6: the Pacific Islands. There was this whole idea of vampires
Speaker 6: and drinking blood long before they found a bat that
Speaker 6: did it seriously. In the earliest vampire stories were people
Speaker 6: that were vampires, and in fact, people did, even in Europe,
Speaker 6: do really despicable things, not even two hundred years ago.
Speaker 6: There were major generals and people who after battle would
Speaker 6: impale enemies by sticking them a sword handle up through
Speaker 6: their body and leaving them alive dangling on it. People
Speaker 6: who would fill a tub with human blood. And there
Speaker 6: are all kinds of crazy things, horrible things done by
Speaker 6: people involume blood. But when we finally discovered a bath
Speaker 6: that ate blood like we still many of us do,
Speaker 6: all of a sudden we'd found the despicable, terrible nasty thing.
Speaker 4: You know what's not despicable? Sharing a meal now, Since
Speaker 4: it's hard to sneak up on bird butts and mammal
Speaker 4: nipples to slice and lap up the blood. Sometimes vampire
Speaker 4: bats will get hungry if they don't feed for a
Speaker 4: day or two, so their friends will know that and
Speaker 4: they'll just barf up blood for them to share. Is
Speaker 4: there anything more goth and selfless than that? It's just
Speaker 4: like offering your neighbor hot talk, except you have eaten
Speaker 4: it first. Not to mention the vampire finch. No one's
Speaker 4: out there worrying about finches.
Speaker 6: Go to my website, go to the photo gallery and
Speaker 6: look under vampires, and you'll find that at least one
Speaker 6: species of vampires is one of the cutest animals around.
Speaker 6: Is cute?
Speaker 4: Merlin got up to get this beautiful little full color
Speaker 4: pamphlet smaller than a deck of cards, slim is a
Speaker 4: credit card. He hands them out to strangers to spread
Speaker 4: the batfacts like how invaluable bats are as pollinators, that
Speaker 4: they can live up to forty years, that they save
Speaker 4: farmers up to twenty three billion dollars a year in
Speaker 4: pest control, that a bat can catch up to one
Speaker 4: thousand insects an hour, that one point five million live
Speaker 4: in Austin, that they form long term friendships that may
Speaker 4: involve blood vomit. So many great facts on this pamphlet
Speaker 4: except for the blood vomit part. But the front of
Speaker 4: the pamphlet has his squish faced bat. It looks like
Speaker 4: a very hairy, tiny fridge bulldog.
Speaker 6: That's Oh, it's so good, Looms, Oh so cute.
Speaker 4: Oh that's a vampire bat.
Speaker 7: I'd let him take a nibble.
Speaker 4: Okay, Now onto the sweet difficult question of picking a
Speaker 4: favorite species, a thing wondered about by patrons Crystal Mendoza,
Speaker 4: Ruby Austrich, Iras McPherson, Kathleen Sachs, and Jay, who asked,
Speaker 4: what's the best bat? And why is it the flying fox?
Speaker 4: Not so fast? Jay? So many people asked, if you
Speaker 4: have a favorite species at bat? Is that so hard
Speaker 4: to ask?
Speaker 6: It's virtually impossible for me to pick a favorite. You know,
Speaker 6: it would tend to be the ones I worked with
Speaker 6: most recently. I used to thank my favorites were the
Speaker 6: larger carnivores. Then I found out that these tiny little
Speaker 6: bats smaller than a nickel are so intelligent thing to
Speaker 6: start training me, it's hard not to fall in love
Speaker 6: with them.
Speaker 4: Rillin says that an unfortunate part of conservation means preserving
Speaker 4: some individual specimens to keep in collections for future ecologists,
Speaker 4: and he says it's in the name of learning as
Speaker 4: much as possible about each species to keep millions of
Speaker 4: them safe. Now, one thing that's a real threat to
Speaker 4: bats we don't talk about often is wind turbines. Now,
Speaker 4: a few of you, Samantha Mitz and Derek Allen asked
Speaker 4: about how dangerous harnessing wind energy is, and Merlin has
Speaker 4: an article on his website about all of this. But
Speaker 4: the long and short of it is that sadly, wind
Speaker 4: power kills tons of bats from collisions and from a
Speaker 4: drop in air pressure that affects their oxygen levels and
Speaker 4: their lungs and can kill them instantly. Now, hundreds and
Speaker 4: hundreds of thousands of bats die just in the US
Speaker 4: each year, and the estimates are likely way lower than
Speaker 4: the reality since so many scavengers will just gobble up
Speaker 4: the dead bats before they're found and counted. So what
Speaker 4: can stop all of these bats dying? Things that can
Speaker 4: stop it involved raising the wind speed threshold for when
Speaker 4: the turbine starts rotating, so waiting till it gets a
Speaker 4: little bit windier to have them start going around. That
Speaker 4: could save seventy seven percent of some species killed with
Speaker 4: only a one percent decline in energy output, or perhaps
Speaker 4: adding an annoying ultrasonic deterrent kind of a loud noise
Speaker 4: that they just hate, kind of like when bars play
Speaker 4: the semisonic hit closing time at intolerable volumes at one
Speaker 4: fifty five am. Now, Merlin says that until the wind
Speaker 4: folks and the bat folks figure it out, we can
Speaker 4: each try individually just to use less electricity, just turn
Speaker 4: out the lights for the bats.
Speaker 6: The goal is to save as much of healthy nature
Speaker 6: on this planet as we can. It's not to quibble
Speaker 6: about every little thing that goes wrong.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the bigger picture for sure.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's return to the topic of cuteness. A listener
Speaker 4: named Georgia wants to know is it true that they
Speaker 4: drink by licking water off their bellies.
Speaker 6: Flying foxes do drink by kind of belly flopping into
Speaker 6: a river water, and when they come up, there's a
Speaker 6: bunch of water clings to their fur and they drink that.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's just like dunking your hair in the sink
Speaker 4: and then sucking on.
Speaker 7: Is go about your day?
Speaker 4: Tons of you had the foresight to submit questions about
Speaker 4: bad eyes, such as Gracie and Gretchen and a few
Speaker 4: others ask if there's any truth to the same blind
Speaker 4: as a bat? And does batvision vary from species to species?
Speaker 4: How what's the range of eyesight for bats?
Speaker 6: It varies from species to species. But I don't know
Speaker 6: of any bath that doesn't probably see fairly well. Their
Speaker 6: baths that have very small eyes, and we wonder how
Speaker 6: well they see. But most baths that have been tested
Speaker 6: certainly see fine.
Speaker 4: Oh I do.
Speaker 6: In fact, some even see color. What's cool, though, is
Speaker 6: that using sound alone, bats can see everything we see,
Speaker 6: except perhaps in some cases color. But they can also
Speaker 6: see things we can't see. Because by looking at this table,
Speaker 6: you do not know if that's rubber painted over or
Speaker 6: if that's hard wood. The bat would know.
Speaker 4: And how is that echolocation working? Is it similar to Wales?
Speaker 4: Some listeners wanted to know. Patrons Helena, dave Wooddriff Curious
Speaker 4: DNA y'all wanted to hear about echolocation and sonar.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's been estimated by the Don Griffin, the guy
Speaker 6: who discovered bat echolocation. He estimated that it was on
Speaker 6: a what for what ounce for round spasis billions of
Speaker 6: times more efficient than anything ever developed by humans.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, have you heard of there are a
Speaker 5: few people who are not cited who are blind to
Speaker 5: use echolocation themselves to avoid obstacles.
Speaker 4: Have you heard about that?
Speaker 6: All bats have been model They've been used as models
Speaker 6: for developing aids for the blind to navigate. In fact,
Speaker 6: the military is using bat models now to try available
Speaker 6: artificial bats at flying anime territory to spy on the
Speaker 6: anime like.
Speaker 4: Little tiny baby drones.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the little ones.
Speaker 4: Now, A few people wanted to know about citizen and
Speaker 4: community science programs, like Elizabeth Alien, Clara Simpson, and Janine Williams,
Speaker 4: who asked a bit too humbly, what is the best
Speaker 4: thing us plubs can do to support that conservation? Also,
Speaker 4: I had to look up plubs because I was like,
Speaker 4: is it pleaves or plubs? Apparently it's plubs. Now. One
Speaker 4: thing this podcast episode is doing is tossing some money
Speaker 4: toward Merlin tuttle dot org. Every week we donate to
Speaker 4: a foundation of the ologists choosing and this one was
Speaker 4: very easy. Merlin Tuttle has been working for fifty years
Speaker 4: to help in back conservation and Merlin Tuttle dot org
Speaker 4: is an amazing resource. So a donation for last week's
Speaker 4: episode and this week's episode will go to Merlin title
Speaker 4: dot org. And there are sponsors who make those donations possible,
Speaker 4: so you may be hearing a few words about them.
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Speaker 4: Okay, back to your questions about community science programs. Janine
Speaker 4: Williams and some others wanted to know what's the best
Speaker 4: thing that community citizen scientists can do to support that conservation.
Speaker 6: The first thing you do is help your neighbors and
Speaker 6: friends get over unfounded fears of bats.
Speaker 2: There's the mind to killer.
Speaker 6: The single most prevalent reason that I have seen worldwide
Speaker 6: for destroying large numbers of bats is fear. I've got
Speaker 6: pictures of piles of batbones in a cave in Mexico
Speaker 6: that where the owner had sealed it shut with hundreds
Speaker 6: of thousands inside. I have been at places where millions
Speaker 6: were burned in caves by just putting old car tires
Speaker 6: in the entrance and dwsed in the kerosene, lighting it
Speaker 6: on fire. I was told by colleagues that there's this
Speaker 6: beautiful bat cave in this place. I should go there
Speaker 6: if I went to Kenya. I went there and it
Speaker 6: had all been bulldozed over, and the owner said, well,
Speaker 6: you know, I built a house just a quarter mile away,
Speaker 6: and everybody told me that that if I didn't get
Speaker 6: rid of those bats, they would move from the cave
Speaker 6: into my house. Those bats would never cared a bit
Speaker 6: about his house. He has stayed right in the cave.
Speaker 6: But people, you know, just in the last couple of years,
Speaker 6: it's even been on National Public Radio that bats are
Speaker 6: arguably among the most dangerous animals on our planet. In
Speaker 6: an NPR story that's probably still there and can be
Speaker 6: looked up, they report is almost a direct quote. When
Speaker 6: bats are flying overhead, beware that poop that falls on
Speaker 6: your shoulder may be ebola. And not long after that aired,
Speaker 6: I was down at the Congress Avenue bridge. A gal
Speaker 6: saw me and realized that I probably knew something about bats,
Speaker 6: and she was very concerned. They're there with her husband
Speaker 6: and said, can you tell me, am I safe? Can
Speaker 6: a bat poop on me here? And I knew she'd
Speaker 6: been listening to radio and these wild stories linking bets
Speaker 6: to every kind of conceivable dangerous thing. It gets back
Speaker 6: in my opinion, well, it starts with the fact that
Speaker 6: Raby's treatment is so lucrative. I mean, just look at
Speaker 6: the difference of treeing a dog and a human right,
Speaker 6: I mean talk about lucrative.
Speaker 4: So Merlin has a blog post about it, and he
Speaker 4: says he usually loves MPR but was deeply, deeply disappointed
Speaker 4: by this. And of course, once again, do you have
Speaker 4: a job or pastime that involves encounters or permanent handling
Speaker 4: of wildlife not a bat idea to get a Raby's vaccine.
Speaker 4: We did cover Raby's stats, which are much lower than
Speaker 4: public perception in part one, but these patrons asked about
Speaker 4: Raby's and rabies vaccines. Pauld Simmons, Margaret Abacherini, Emily Martinez,
Speaker 4: deb Nervous and Brandy Mandy Bender, Madz Clement, Caitlin O'Connell,
Speaker 4: Eric Mahanka Greer, don A Wald, Alissa Wearing Crisper, and
Speaker 4: Lauren Eggert Crowe. And I will repeat the disclaimer from
Speaker 4: part one. Doctor Merlin Tittle reminds us he and other
Speaker 4: bat researchers, like vets, they have received pre exposure vaccination
Speaker 4: against rabies that protects against defensive bites from animals that
Speaker 4: they might handle who are unfamiliar now unprotected people bitten
Speaker 4: by any animal should seek advice regarding a possible need
Speaker 4: to be vaccinated or have the animal tested for rabies.
Speaker 4: But Catherine Stacey asked, can the bats get the vaccine?
Speaker 4: Is there a bait laced with rabies vaccine for bats
Speaker 4: like what's used for other wildlife such as foxes and raccoons.
Speaker 4: What's going on with that? As someone asked about giving
Speaker 4: bat vaccines like they might do without other wildlife, like
Speaker 4: if vaccinating bats for rabies is even a thing that's
Speaker 4: worth looking into.
Speaker 6: I was part of a panel discussion and actually have
Speaker 6: a paper I believe in press now in which that
Speaker 6: is disc gust I happen to be one of there
Speaker 6: are several authors. I'm one that says I don't think
Speaker 6: it's worth it.
Speaker 4: Okay, This next sunny or perhaps not so sunny question
Speaker 4: was asked by Leanne Schuster, A zamb And Amelia Hines
Speaker 4: and a lot of well on that topic, A lot
Speaker 4: of listeners have the question if you see a bat
Speaker 4: during the day, is it a bad sign?
Speaker 6: Not necessarily depends on where the bat is. If the
Speaker 6: bats hanging in a normal position where that species lives.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, I have plenty of times walked
Speaker 6: under a tree, and I know what kind of leaves.
Speaker 6: Bats that live under leaves like to hang on and
Speaker 6: I'll look up, Oh there's a bat. Well that bat's
Speaker 6: doing He's perfectly normal. That's not a problem.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: If the bat is out on the ground or out
Speaker 6: where a bird could easily catch it in the daytime,
Speaker 6: then that bat is almost certainly sick. Now, that doesn't
Speaker 6: mean he's rabid. Ninety five percent of such bats aren't rabid,
Speaker 6: but five percent are. Most of the statistics you hear
Speaker 6: about rabies and bats come from there. Taken from the
Speaker 6: Health Department only gets suspect bats submitted. If the bat's
Speaker 6: not acting abnormally, it doesn't get submitted. So this is
Speaker 6: like deciding what proportion of Americans have cancer based on
Speaker 6: checking cancer clinics.
Speaker 4: Seah, that works. Now, the next question was asked by
Speaker 4: a lot of you, and I mean approximately one million.
Speaker 4: So I will say your name's with my mouth very fast.
Speaker 4: This is a white hot topic. It was right under
Speaker 4: our noses. Now. Even though Merlin's a fun guy, I
Speaker 4: had to ask him this tiny pummer white nose syndrome
Speaker 4: asked about by Ruby Austrick, first time question asker, Jesse Spencer,
Speaker 4: Emily Jean, Alicia Gailan, Margaret Matera, Bronwin, Trum McDonald, b
Speaker 4: and K Boys, Quentin McKenna, Larsen, Jennifer Downey, Live Scheffer,
Speaker 4: Samantha Bold, Pandora Two, Hannah M Childers, Acacia Sprague, Lauren Harder,
Speaker 4: Sarah Luchesi, Cassie Flint, Leah Wilber, Ana Thompson, jcw Adam Weaver,
Speaker 4: tanging At, Mandy Bender, Caitlyn Fitzgerald, Roonda Grizzle, Madeline Rodgers,
Speaker 4: who says, where is white nose syndrome the worst and
Speaker 4: what species does it affect the most? And how bad
Speaker 4: is it? What can we do?
Speaker 7: What's going on with white nose?
Speaker 4: And now when it comes to white nose, what can
Speaker 4: be done to help them?
Speaker 6: The most important thing that could be done now to
Speaker 6: help bats that have populations that have crashed because of
Speaker 6: white nose syndrome is to help protect and restore more
Speaker 6: roosting habitat, more habitat in general, but particularly roosting.
Speaker 4: Habitat and now roosting habitat that's the overnight sleepy.
Speaker 6: Time mostly where they hibernate.
Speaker 4: Oh, well, that was the next question.
Speaker 7: Do they eat in winter?
Speaker 4: Do they hibernate?
Speaker 6: The bats that have been hardest hit by white nose
Speaker 6: syndrome are bats that hibernate in k's all winter. God,
Speaker 6: there's very little food in a temperate zone from you know,
Speaker 6: you might get away with staying active in the winter here,
Speaker 6: but you go a little bit north of here and
Speaker 6: throughout most of the United States and Canada, there are
Speaker 6: no insects available to eat at night, so you have
Speaker 6: to either migrate south for the winter or hybernate in
Speaker 6: a cave. And the biggest losses of all time have
Speaker 6: occurred when their hibernating caves were destroyed and are disturbed.
Speaker 6: And here's the problem. Years ago, I know evenly would
Speaker 6: say the cavers. What's the problem with saving less than
Speaker 6: one percent of caves for bats, leaves all the rest
Speaker 6: for you. Well, it's not quite that way. We humans
Speaker 6: want the same caves that the bats want, So we're
Speaker 6: competing for the one percent that have gigantic entrances, huge passages,
Speaker 6: multiple you know, complexity. Those are the first ones we
Speaker 6: humans want, and so many huge numbers of our us
Speaker 6: baths were lost before anybody even reported that they were present.
Speaker 4: Is there anything that can be done to medicate them
Speaker 4: at all? Or to medicate yeah, can you give them
Speaker 4: anti fungal No?
Speaker 6: No, okay, I'm absolutely adamant about that. I believe that
Speaker 6: more harm is being done than help in trying to
Speaker 6: find a cure for white no syndrome.
Speaker 4: It's more just trying to recover the populations.
Speaker 6: Since since this began, there have been cures found. I mean,
Speaker 6: I remember a rehaber that just mixed a dilute vinegar
Speaker 6: and water mixture and could cure white no syndrome. But
Speaker 6: when they banded all those baths and released them back
Speaker 6: the while, they got infected again and died. So curing
Speaker 6: because you find something that'll kill the fundungus is not
Speaker 6: a cure that keeps you from getting reinfected. And even
Speaker 6: if you found something that would prevent reinfection, imagine trying
Speaker 6: to treat all the bats or the locations. There must
Speaker 6: be billions of locations infected with that fungus. Now, I
Speaker 6: mean just mammoth cave alone that used to house many
Speaker 6: millions of baths, has more than four hundred miles of passages.
Speaker 6: Imagine treating all those with something that's going to kill
Speaker 6: this fungus, and then understand that this fungus is only
Speaker 6: one of thousands of kinds of fungi, and if you
Speaker 6: found something that would kill it, you might cause a
Speaker 6: horrible problem chain reaction, destroying whole ecosystems that we don't
Speaker 6: even know much about.
Speaker 7: Yeah, is the best course of action.
Speaker 4: To let it run its course and make sure that
Speaker 4: they have enough places to roost and just repopulate.
Speaker 6: If you go to my website again and look under
Speaker 6: each horses under white nose syndrome. I did a thorough
Speaker 6: investigation a few months ago of what has happened where
Speaker 6: it has passed over the last decade, and we're seeing
Speaker 6: clear signs of recovery. Genetically resistant bats are apparently recovering.
Speaker 4: Okay, Okay, that's promising. That's the good news, and so
Speaker 4: it's wonderful that we have Merlin going to bat for
Speaker 4: these critters. I hate myself.
Speaker 6: I did find evidence that it's very interesting. There are
Speaker 6: colonies that have fully recovered that dropped by at least
Speaker 6: eighty percent when it passed that are now fully recovered.
Speaker 6: The ones I'm thinking about, many of them have been
Speaker 6: banded by researchers, and when they look for them, they
Speaker 6: never find them in hibernation.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 6: This means that those survivors are doing so well well,
Speaker 6: haven't had to put up with humans trying to save them.
Speaker 6: Let me point out that before white nose syndrome was
Speaker 6: a problem. I mean, I founded the first two endangered
Speaker 6: species recovery teams for bats in America, and we were
Speaker 6: adamant that nobody would go in disturb bats during hibernation
Speaker 6: more than once every two years, even to census for
Speaker 6: the government to tell how they're doing and retrospect. Now
Speaker 6: I think we should have made that every three to
Speaker 6: five years, because I have again on my website published
Speaker 6: resources about the cost of hibernation disturbance. When you go
Speaker 6: into a cave and force about to wake up out
Speaker 6: of hibernation in the wintertime, he burns up on average
Speaker 6: thirty to sixty days worth of stored fat reserve. This
Speaker 6: fungus is killing bats because it makes them. You know,
Speaker 6: like if you've ever had chiggers or poison ivy, you
Speaker 6: don't sleep well at night, you wake up, Well, that's
Speaker 6: what's happened to the baths. They're waking up out of hibernation.
Speaker 6: It's very costly, and that's why they're coming out before spring.
Speaker 6: They're desperate, they're starving, and that's why they're dying. Well, imagine,
Speaker 6: once white nose syndrome came along, there were some places
Speaker 6: where researchers are going in there half a dozen times
Speaker 6: or more winter and sometimes spending hours.
Speaker 7: Oh wow, and they're even more tired.
Speaker 6: That would have been enough to knock the population that
Speaker 6: cave out without any fungal problem.
Speaker 4: So let those snoozy, little floppy faced fuzz puppets sleep people,
Speaker 4: get out of their beautiful vulvenoses, let them catch somesease.
Speaker 6: Evolution is going to play its course.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 6: And I don't know of any evidence yet that any
Speaker 6: species is going to go extinct because of this, All
Speaker 6: the ones I know of that where it's passed by
Speaker 6: far enough we'll go to have an idea seem to
Speaker 6: be hanging on. I won't call it thriving, but hanging
Speaker 6: on and showing signs now of recovery.
Speaker 4: So if you're worried about about the bats, don't lose
Speaker 4: all your sleep over just white nose.
Speaker 6: White nose is only affecting right now, less than a
Speaker 6: dozen species wow, out of forty some species in the US.
Speaker 6: They don't all have to hibernate in caves. Some species
Speaker 6: are actually probably benefiting because they don't have to compete
Speaker 6: with the ones that are dying from white nose syndrome.
Speaker 6: And I'm not going to say that's beneficial overall. The
Speaker 6: good side may be that we have suddenly become much
Speaker 6: more aware of bats and how harmful it could be
Speaker 6: to lose them, and more people have learned about bats
Speaker 6: and care because of white nose syndrome. But I do
Speaker 6: believe all the colonies that have been best monitored that
Speaker 6: I know of are starting to recover. They're good and
Speaker 6: I'm very optimistic. One thing that I'm very concerned about
Speaker 6: is working with sport cavers, who often discover old roosting
Speaker 6: sites and caves that nobody else knows about. During this time,
Speaker 6: government agencies have blanket told the cavers oftentimes they just
Speaker 6: couldn't go caving, and I actually made enemies out of
Speaker 6: former allies. And we need those cavers out there telling
Speaker 6: us where our places are that we need to protect,
Speaker 6: and often they're very happy to do it for us
Speaker 6: if we just cooperate with them instead of just saying
Speaker 6: you can't go caving anymore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, is to try to get them invested in it
Speaker 4: as well. Merlin Tuttle, National treasure Skilled Diplomat. Now on
Speaker 4: Merlin Tuttle dot org you can find a fifteen minute
Speaker 4: video titled the Power of Winning Friends and not Battles
Speaker 4: Merlin Tuttle's observation philosophy. I love him. Have you mentioned
Speaker 4: he's an American hero? Okay, So it's dark and mysterious
Speaker 4: in caves, and how do cavers tell if there have
Speaker 4: been past bat parties?
Speaker 6: They stained the limestone, and you can tell by the
Speaker 6: contours and the stain on the limestone. You can actually
Speaker 6: estimate roughly how many bats lived there in the past.
Speaker 6: And there are plenty of those places where bats could
Speaker 6: be restored, even millions. And I personally have seen at
Speaker 6: least at least multi millions restored where there were none.
Speaker 6: Oh wow, not multimillions in one cave, but like in
Speaker 6: one Tennessee cave it was down to sixty five gray
Speaker 6: bats and now it's up to a quarter million. There
Speaker 6: are many encouraging instances where we can see that we
Speaker 6: are re establishing hundreds of thousands of bats. It's not
Speaker 6: all about millions dying. There are things that we can
Speaker 6: do to restore habitat. We can put up bathouses in
Speaker 6: our backyards, and we should be very concerned about caves
Speaker 6: that can be restored. Years ago, when everybody was scared
Speaker 6: death of rabies, commercial cave owners and they don't like
Speaker 6: call themselves commercial cave owners. They used to not want
Speaker 6: any baths in their caves because people are so frightened
Speaker 6: and freaked out by them. But we have a cave
Speaker 6: right here in North Austin. Now it's a commercialized tour
Speaker 6: cave and it's got quite a few hibernating baths in
Speaker 6: it that have learned to ignore people because it's very
Speaker 6: well protected and nobody ever harms them. And people walk
Speaker 6: right by within two meters of those baths and the
Speaker 6: bats don't even pay any attention. And you know, the
Speaker 6: bats are very good at adapting to us, if we'll
Speaker 6: only adapt to get along with them. Right And despite
Speaker 6: all this stuff about how bats are supposed to be
Speaker 6: such dangerous disease carriers, let me point out that they
Speaker 6: have one of the world's finest track records. I don't
Speaker 6: know if any animal has a finer track record than
Speaker 6: bats that living in close association with people without causing
Speaker 6: human sickness.
Speaker 4: Right, And it's so cool to think that they might
Speaker 4: be all around us and we just don't get a
Speaker 4: chance to necessarily see them. And Ryan and Jasmine want
Speaker 4: to know what material is closest to that of bat wings,
Speaker 4: like how can you make a batsuit?
Speaker 6: I have seen comparisons in terms of strength where I
Speaker 6: think there's actually a medical doctor that wrote this said
Speaker 6: that the average bat wing was nineteen times sturdier than
Speaker 6: a surgeon's glove. Oh my gosh, that's the best statistic
Speaker 6: I can come up with on wings.
Speaker 4: Pretty solid stats. So I looked into it and their
Speaker 4: skin that stretches like a living drum between those gorgeous,
Speaker 4: freakishly long fashioned model fingers. That's called a potassium or
Speaker 4: petasia plural, and it's two thin layers of skin with
Speaker 4: a last in between it. Also, Listener no fundacal says
Speaker 4: she got slapped once in the face by one and
Speaker 4: it felt leathery. And I don't know why she calls
Speaker 4: herself no fundical because that's a top notch story. Boy, howdie,
Speaker 4: She's fine. So moving on, to things that are not excellent.
Speaker 4: What is something about bats or about your job that
Speaker 4: you really don't like? What sucks about being a chiropterologist?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't like.
Speaker 7: Yeah, what's the worst part about your job?
Speaker 4: The thing that you're like, Oh, this, The worst part.
Speaker 7: Is just.
Speaker 6: I have founded more than one conservation organization and spent
Speaker 6: most of my life. You vowed to that, And the
Speaker 6: worst part for me is day to day wanting to
Speaker 6: be sure that I find the financial resources to keep
Speaker 6: those good people that follow me and want to help
Speaker 6: it's financially healthy and their families. Okay, it isn't easy
Speaker 6: even now to raise money for bats. People and organizations
Speaker 6: will line up and compete with each other to protect
Speaker 6: cute things like pandas. And the crazy thing is there's
Speaker 6: nothing uncute about bats. It's just the belief. Here's another
Speaker 6: one of our craziest about humans. You know, we perceive anything.
Speaker 6: The bigger the eyes, the more beautiful. You don't want
Speaker 6: a very big nose, You don't want to be very
Speaker 6: heavy set.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, quick aside. For more dirt on incredibly screwed
Speaker 4: up beauty standards, listen to the two part coology episode
Speaker 4: with psychologist doctor Beni Ngel. We did not discuss pandas
Speaker 4: in it, but it is otherwise very juicy in life changing.
Speaker 6: What animal by those token should we dislike the most?
Speaker 6: Some panda, elephants.
Speaker 4: The elephants, okay, I was saying, the panta is a.
Speaker 6: Little Everybody loves elephants. And you want to know another
Speaker 6: interesting statistic, more humans are killed annually in the United
Speaker 6: States by elephants than by.
Speaker 4: Bats by the Bye. I looked up most deadly animals
Speaker 4: to humans, and the top two are mosquitoes and humans.
Speaker 4: Bats are like, don't look at me, man, I'm eating
Speaker 4: the mosquitoes that are killing you. And I've never been
Speaker 4: caught up in a life insurance scandal that's on y'all.
Speaker 6: That just shows how rare it is for anybody killed
Speaker 6: by bat.
Speaker 4: I think what you will do for bats is what
Speaker 4: people did for whales in the seventies and elephants. I
Speaker 4: think that I think that your work alone may bring
Speaker 4: bats into human consciousness where they are not just.
Speaker 7: An October decal or decoration.
Speaker 6: You know, well, you know that's that's one of my
Speaker 6: primary purposes and being a photographer until I learned to
Speaker 6: take pictures of bats as they really are. You could
Speaker 6: almost never see a picture of bat that wasn't snarling
Speaker 6: in self defense. You take a little bat whose head
Speaker 6: is no bigger than my thumb, provoke him. He thinks
Speaker 6: you're about to eat him. You take a picture, blow
Speaker 6: it up to page size. Looks like a saber tooth
Speaker 6: tiger on the attack. Who in the world wouldn't be
Speaker 6: afraid of this critter?
Speaker 4: And what kind of speeds do you have to use?
Speaker 4: What kind of camera? What kind of speeds and lenses
Speaker 4: do you have to use to get these gorgeous pictures?
Speaker 6: You don't have to take everything that fast, But now
Speaker 6: I take almost all my pictures, at least if they're
Speaker 6: flash pictures, they're taking it about a forty thousands of
Speaker 6: a second.
Speaker 7: Wow, they're gorgeous.
Speaker 6: Well, the pictures have been a major, major part of
Speaker 6: the public turnaround when it comes to bats. Seeing is believing,
Speaker 6: hearing is not quite there.
Speaker 4: And now the best part of your job, your favorite
Speaker 4: thing about bats, your favorite thing about your job.
Speaker 6: Anybody that associates with me would tell you loud and
Speaker 6: clear that I am a bat photography addict. I love
Speaker 6: getting great pictures that nobody else has thought of getting
Speaker 6: and I will sit out for seemingly endlessly waiting for
Speaker 6: something to happen, And usually it's for the purpose of
Speaker 6: promoting conservation. Everybody knows. I'll spend ten times more time
Speaker 6: trying to get a good shot of a bat catching
Speaker 6: a insect that costs billions of dollars in crop losses
Speaker 6: as an insect that's just pretty or ugly or something.
Speaker 6: But people ask me what I do in my leisure time.
Speaker 6: I study baths and photographed bats for vacation time. I've
Speaker 6: had a lifelong vacation.
Speaker 7: That is the best.
Speaker 6: And one of my favorite things is developing, perfecting my
Speaker 6: ability to change attitudes for the better for the environment,
Speaker 6: and that over time takes a lot of skill. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you learn to ask questions rather than debating people who've
Speaker 6: done things you disagree with.
Speaker 4: I think you would have been a great politician, but
Speaker 4: I'm glad that you helped the bats instead.
Speaker 6: Probably more productive. I didn't really say that.
Speaker 4: This has been just years in the making and quite
Speaker 4: possibly my favorite conversation I've ever had. Thank you so
Speaker 4: much for letting me come to your place, your roost here.
Speaker 6: Well, you're very welcome, and just know that we didn't
Speaker 6: even cover a tenth of what should have been talked
Speaker 6: about about bats. So if you get a big encore,
Speaker 6: come on back. You'll be welcome. A great job.
Speaker 4: Thank you, doctor Tuttle.
Speaker 7: That's amazing.
Speaker 4: So there you have it. Shamelessly ask the sharpest minds
Speaker 4: the dopiest questions because that is how they learned, and
Speaker 4: people who love things want to share those things.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: Of course, follow Merlin Tuttle on all social platforms. He
Speaker 4: and his social media right hand, Teresa Nikta, are both amazing.
Speaker 4: He is on Twitter at Merlin's Bats, Instagram at Merlin
Speaker 4: Tuttle Photo, on Facebook at Merlin Title Bat Conservation, and
Speaker 4: of course Merlin Title dot org has all those links.
Speaker 4: That website is an incredible resource for photos of bats
Speaker 4: and articles and blog posts for Merlin and future trips
Speaker 4: in the field with him, so check that out. The
Speaker 4: worst thing about his work, and he has drank out
Speaker 4: of cave puddles, is making sure it's all funded, so
Speaker 4: of course a second donation went to his organization for
Speaker 4: this episode. To support you can go to Merlin Title
Speaker 4: dot org.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: Links for this episode are up at aliwar dot com,
Speaker 4: slash Ologies, slash Chiropterology, and there are links in the
Speaker 4: show notes. There are also shirts and hats and tots
Speaker 4: and Ologies merch available at aliwar dot com. Thank you
Speaker 4: Shannon Feltiz and Bonnie Dutch for managing that, and also
Speaker 4: check out their comedy podcast You Are That. Thank you
Speaker 4: to admins of the Ologies podcast Facebook group Aaron Talbert.
Speaker 4: Thank you to all the Ologies transcribers helmed by Emily White.
Speaker 4: Transcripts and bleeped episodes are at aliwar dot com slash
Speaker 4: Ologies dash Extras. There's a link in the show notes.
Speaker 4: Thank you to assistant editor Jared Sleeper of the mental
Speaker 4: health podcast My Good, Bad Brain and the mustachioed bat,
Speaker 4: which I believe is a species of bet Stephen Ray
Speaker 4: Morris of the percst Cat Pod and the Dino Pod
Speaker 4: c Jurassic Wright, who edits all these pieces together each week,
Speaker 4: And if you listen all the way to the end,
Speaker 4: you know I tell you a secret each week, and
Speaker 4: this week the secret is that I'm recording these asides
Speaker 4: from a hotel room in Austin. I'm here shooting for CBS.
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sad because I don't think I'm gonna get
Speaker 4: to see Marlin again while I'm he but hopefully I'll
Speaker 4: be back in Austin soon. Austin, You're a great town.
Speaker 4: What's up with that? Why are you so good? This?
Speaker 4: Pretty people are nice? Food is good. It's got a
Speaker 4: bunch of antique malls. Also, one more secret. I had
Speaker 4: fu today and it was very onion heavy, and I
Speaker 4: feel like my hands still smell like onions, and I
Speaker 4: can't figure that out because i didn't eat the soup
Speaker 4: with my hands and I've washed my hands several times.
Speaker 4: So I'm just alone smelling like onions and a Hampton
Speaker 4: in in Texas, Google and bat Dicks.
Speaker 7: This is the life I chose, and I love it.
Speaker 4: Okay, next week, I'm not going to tell you what
Speaker 4: the episode is, but I'm very stoked about it. Okay, Okay, Pacadermatology, mambiology,
Speaker 4: rbdo Zoology, Lithology, Technology, meteorology, paratology, anthology, zereologylology,